property assessed improvements but no idea why

[Simon Davis]

Hello

I am asking this for my neighbor. She recently lost her husband and is taking care of all the finances herself which the husband used to do. She showed me her property tax statement and was surprised the tax is so much. I read the statement and it says she bought the condo for $x which she agrees with. But then there is something called improvements, and the improvements is just as much, making the assessed value $2x. she has no idea how this could be. She says she remodeled her kitchen a long time ago but never got a permit from the city and there is no way the city would know. besides, based on my preliminary research, remodeling a kitchen doesn't cause a reassessment anyway. There has been some work done on the building over the years, nothing major. The hoa supposedly improved the elevator (which made it worse by the way), they painted the exterior. Nothing that would really improve the lives of the tenants. Could these be why city is assessing $x in improvements? She was going to pay it but I told her let me research this for you. I think it's ridiculous. what can be done? if we fight the city, is there a risk that they will assess even more ("we investigated and realized not only is the improvements worth $x, it's actually worth $x + $100,000").